The Iron Hand of Mars

by Lindsey Davis

  This unsophisticated parley was all I could expect. In a legionary gatehouse on a dark, wet October night, there was not much scope for light salon conversation. Behind me, two exhausted despatch-riders were waiting to register, Xanthus was looking even more indiscreet, and a very drunk venison-supplier who wanted to dispute a bill with the centurions’ dining club was jostling me so closely that I left, not wanting a fight right then, yet feeling as bruised and indignant as a barmaid at a Saturnalia feast.

  I booked us into a civilian lodging-house between the fort and the river, so we could make a quick departure at first light. We went to the baths but were already too late for the hot water. Dazed by the way foreign towns draw their shutters so early, we ate a grim supper, forcing it down with acidic white wine, and were then kept awake most of the night by tramping boots. I had settled us in a street full of brothels. Xanthus became intrigued, but I told him the disturbance was just troops on a night exercise.

  “Listen, Xanthus. When I go up to Moguntiacum, you can stay here if you like. I’ll pick you up for the trip home when I’ve done what I have to for the Emperor.”

  “Oh no. I’ve come this far, I’ll stick with you!”

  He spoke as if he was doing me a gigantic favour. I closed my eyes wearily and made no reply.

  * * *

  Next morning I tried to hitch us a ride for nothing, but no luck. The trip down the Rhenus is a highly picturesque one, so the owners of the river barges were charging equally highly for the privilege of surveying a hundred miles of its scenery.

  Ours was a wineship; most of them are. We shared the slowly passing vistas with two old fellows and a pedlar. The grandads had bent backs, bald heads, and a series of mouthwatering picnics which they had no intention of sharing round. They sat opposite each other for the whole journey, talking hard, like people who have known one another for a very long time.

  The pedlar, who came aboard at a small settlement called Borbetomagus was bent too, but under the trappings of a fold-up stall and the ghastly stuff he sold. Xanthus and I were a captive audience so he soon unknotted the corners of his cloth bundles and spread his offerings on the deck. I ignored him. Xanthus immediately throbbed with crass excitement.

  “Look at this, Falco!”

  Since I did sometimes make a feeble attempt to save him from his stupidity, I glanced at the trash he was about to invest in now. Then I groaned. This time it was militaria. You may suppose our footslogging heroes would have had enough of kit and harness without spending their pay on more, but never believe it; this canny pedlar was doing a fine trade flogging the legionaries his sad souvenirs of ancient wars. I had seen it in Britain. I had seen it in the cartload of junk my elder brother, who had no sense of proportion, had dragged home from the exotic souks of Caesaria. Here, with nine legions along the Rhenus, most of them bored and all of them flush with imperial silver, there must be a vast scope for trading in quaint tribal buckles, worn-out weaponry and odd jags of iron that could have come off any farm implement.

  The man was a native Ubian, all top lip and small talk. The lip was stretched over big buck teeth; the chat was his softening-up technique. It worked on Xanthus. Most things did. I let the two of them get on with it.

  The pedlar’s name was Dubnus. He was selling the usual native helmets with spikes over the ears, several bowls of “old” arrowheads and speartips (which he had obviously gathered up last Thursday from a rubbish tip at a previous fort), a dirty drinking-cup which he swore to Xanthus was an aurochs’ horn, some links of “Sarmatian armour,” half a set of “Icenean horse-trappings,” and just by the way, a collection of Baltic amber.

  None of it contained fossilised insect life, but the amber was the only stuff worth considering. Naturally Xanthus passed straight on without a second glance. I said I would have bought some beads for my girlfriend if they had been matched and threaded properly. Not entirely to my surprise, Dubnus immediately produced from his unsavoury pocket three or four decent necklace strands—at three or four times the price.

  We spent a tolerable half-hour haggling over the string with the smallest beads. I beat him down to about a quarter of the asking price just for the vocal exercise, then snapped up one of the better necklaces as I had intended all along. The pedlar had weighed me up cannily, but Xanthus looked startled. He did not know I had spent my childhood burrowing around the Saepta Julia secondhand stalls. I also thought it might be wise to buy a present for Helena’s birthday in case I ran into her. I was missing her. It made me an easy mark for anyone hawking trinkets that showed slight vestiges of taste.

  Judging that my purse was now firmly closed, Dubnus turned his whining charm on Xanthus again. He was an artist. As an auctioneer’s son, I almost enjoyed watching it. Luckily, we were not sailing all the way down to the delta, or the barber would have bought up the pedlar’s entire stock. He did fall for the aurochs’ horn, supposedly hacked by Dubnus himself from one of the wild Gallic oxen whose savage temper is legendary …

  “I’d really like to see one of those, Falco!”

  “Just be thankful it’s unlikely!”

  “You ever spied one on your travels?”

  “No. I’m sensible, Xanthus—I never wanted to.”

  His acquisition was a fairly useful drinking-cup, which didn’t spill too much down his tunic neck when he attempted to use it. He managed to polish it up to a handsome shine. I never told him that aurochs don’t have twisted horns.

  As the wineship floated on to our destination, Dubnus slowly rewrapped his treasures. Xanthus began to handle a helmet. Partly to rescue him before he was bankrupt (because that would mean I’d have to pay for everything), I took the item away from him.

  It looked like army issue at first, but with differences. The modern helmet incorporates a deeper guard around the back, protecting the neck and shoulders; it also has cheekpieces and extra protection over the ears. I suspect the revised design was developed to counter damage from Celtic broadsword swipes. The original pattern had been superseded long before my time, but I was staring at one now.

  “This must be quite an antique, Dubnus.”

  “I call that a relic of the Varus disaster!” he confessed amiably, as if owning to a fake; then his eyes met mine and he had second thoughts. I managed to stop myself shivering.

  “Where did you get it?”

  “Oh … somewhere in the woods.” His voice faded evasively.

  “Where?” I asked again.

  “Oh … up in the north.”

  “Somewhere like the Teutoburger forest?”

  He was reluctant to clarify. I dropped to one knee, surveying his stock more attentively. He had marked me up as trouble, so he didn’t like me doing it. I ignored his agitation. That worried him even more.

  Now I noticed a piece of old bronze that could have come from a Roman sword pommel; clasps that resembled a set I had seen at my grandfather’s house; a holder for a helmet plume—another discontinued line, now altered to a carrying loop.

  “Sell a lot of these ‘Varus relics,’ do you?”

  “People believe what they want to.”

  There was also a blackened object I refused to handle because I guessed it was a human skull.

  * * *

  I stood up again.

  Augustus’s stepgrandson, the heroic Germanicus, was supposed to have found where the massacre had taken place, collected the scattered remains of the dead, and given the lost army of Varus some kind of decent funeral—but who believes that out in the hostile forest Germanicus and his nervous troops spent too much time offering themselves as another target? They did their best. They brought the lost standards back to Rome. After that we could all sleep with clear consciences. It was best not to think that somewhere deep in the dark woods of unconquered Germany broken weapons and other booty might still lie among unburied Roman bones.

  The troops of today would buy this mouldy paraphernalia. Army lads love souvenirs that smack of manly deeds in dangerous venues. The grislier the
better. If Dubnus really had discovered the old battle site, he must be coining it.

  I avoided the issue by probing for my own purposes. “So you go across the river, do you? In the north?” He shrugged. Commerce breeds daring. In any case, free Germany had never been a no-go area for the purposes of trade. “How far do your travels take you? Ever come across the famous prophetess?”

  “Which prophetess would that be?”

  He was teasing. I tried not to look particularly interested, in case word of my mission ran ahead of me. “Is there more than one sinister spinster wielding influence over the tribes? I mean the bloodthirsty priestess of the Bructeri.”

  “Oh, Veleda!” sneered Dubnus.

  “Ever met her?”

  “No one meets her.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “She lives at the top of a high tower in a lonely place in the forest. She never sees anyone.”

  “Since when have prophets been so shy?” Just my luck. A really weird one. “I never imagined she kept a marble office, with an appointments secretary serving peppermint tea for visitors, but how does she communicate?”

  “Her male relations carry messages.” Judging by the effect Veleda had had on international events, her uncles and brothers must have busily trampled a wide swathe through the woods. It rather took the shine off her elusiveness.

  The barber was wearing his excitable look. “Is Veleda part of your mission?” he hissed. His wide-eyed simplicity was beginning to afflict me like a stitch in the side when you’re running away from a mad bull.

  “Women I can handle. But I don’t do Druids!” It was a line. Two of us knew it, yet poor old Xanthus looked impressed.

  I had to act fast. Our barge was approaching the great bridge at Moguntiacum; we would soon berth at the quay. I gave the pedlar a thoughtful glance. “If somebody wanted to contact Veleda, would it be possible to get a message to this tower of hers?”

  “Could be.”

  Dubnus looked disturbed by the suggestion. I made it plain I was speaking with some authority, and told him not to leave town.

  The pedlar assumed the air of a man who would leave town exactly when he wanted to, and without telling me first.

  PART THREE

  LEGIO XIV GEMINA MARTIA VICTRIX

  Moguntiacum, Upper Germany, October, AD 71

  “… above all the Fourteenth, whose men had covered themselves in glory by quelling the rebellion in Britain.”

  Tacitus, The Histories

  XVI

  Moguntiacum.

  A bridge. A tollbooth. A column. A huddle of civilian huts, with a few handsome homes owned by the local wool and wine merchants. All dominated by one of the Empire’s biggest forts.

  The settlement stood just below the confluence of the Rhenus and the Moenus waterways. The bridge, which joined the Roman side of the Rhenus to huts and wharfs on the opposite bank, had triangular piers thrust out to break the current, and a wooden rail. The tollbooth was a temporary affair, about to be superseded by a massive new customs-post at Colonia Agrippinensium. (Vespasian was a tax-collector’s son; as Emperor it coloured his approach.) The column, erected in the time of Nero, was a grand effort celebrating Jupiter. The huge fort declared that Rome meant business here, though whether we were trying to bluff the tribes or convince ourselves was open to debate.

  My first disappointment was immediately thrust on me. I had been telling Xanthus he could busy himself setting up shop with his razors among the canabae. Most military establishments grow a thicket of booths, a shanty-town fringe that hogs the outer walls, offering the troops off-duty entertainment of the usual sordid kinds. It springs up when the baths are constructed outside the fortress as a fire precaution, after which breadshops, brothels, barbers, and bijouteries rapidly collect—with or without licences. Then the inevitable camp-followers and the soldiers’ unofficial families arrive, and soon the extramural clutter swells into a civilian town.

  At Moguntiacum there were no booths.

  It was a shock. We could see where they had all been cleared. The operation must have been swift and thorough. A mound of bashed-in shutters and splintered awning poles still stood nearby. Now bare ground surrounded the fort, forming a wide defensible berm from which the turf walls rose a clean eighteen feet to the watchtowers and patrol-track. Among the visible defenses I counted one more Punic ditch than usual, and in the midfield a fatigue party was planting what the legions call a lily garden; deep pits dug in a quincunx pattern, set with sharpened stakes, then covered with brushwood to disguise their whereabouts—a savage deterrent during an attack.

  The civilians had been deposited way back beyond the outer ditch, and even a year after the Civilis Revolt no re-encroachment was allowed. The impression was stark. It was meant to be.

  At the fort itself, instead of the usual organised but easygoing atmosphere of an army in peacetime, we soon grasped that this army sketched in its civic role with a light hand. Its gestures to the local community were mostly obscene.

  The barber and I counted as locals until we proved otherwise. When we presented our persons at the Praetorian entrance, even Xanthus stopped twittering. We had to leave our horses. There was no making ourselves agreeable to bored sentries inside the guardroom; we were detained in the square chamber between the double sets of gates, and it was plain that if our story and our documents failed to match, we would be pinned up against a wall by a nine-inch javelin-tip and vigorously body-searched.

  The atmosphere upset me. The jolt reminded me of Britain after the Boudiccan affair. That was something I had intended to forget.

  We were passed in, however. My docket from the Emperor aroused suspicion but worked the trick. We were eyed up, listed, given order to go directly to the Principia, then allowed through the inner gates.

  I myself was ready for the size and scope of the immense interior, but even being born and bred in the labyrinthine corridors of Rome’s imperial court had failed to prepare Xanthus for this. Moguntiacum was a permanent fort, and a double one at that. With two legions stationed there, almost everything was in duplicate. It was a military city. Twelve thousand men were packed inside, with enough stores, smithies, and granaries to withstand months under siege—not that that had worked for the poor devils attacked by the rebels at Vetera. Within the base, the two commanding legates would occupy minor palaces designed to reflect their grandeur and diplomatic standing; the housing stock for the twelve young military tribunes who supported them would make the best villas in most Italian towns look mean; and even the commissariat buildings, where Xanthus and I were heading, were dramatic in their blunt, military way.

  We came out from the cold shadow of the rampart walkway. With the guard-towers of the gatehouse looming overhead, we had first to cross the perimeter road. It was eighty feet wide. The perimeter track, which was designed to give protection from missiles as well as provide ready access to all parts of the fort, was kept well clear of obstruction. I made a mental note that the XIV Gemina must take half the credit for the immaculate housekeeping, though they probably made their lesser colleagues empty the rubbish skips and sweep the roads. Stacks of spare javelins were stored handy for the ramparts, along with piles of heavy shot and field ballista bolts, but there were none of the roaming beasts or the litter of wagons that you often see. If the sacred chickens were allowed free range, it was not on this side of the fort.

  I towed the barber past the endless barrack blocks: nearly fifty pairs (though I can’t say I counted), each housing a hundred and sixty men in groups of ten, with a double set of centurions’ quarters at one end of every block. Adequate space for the legionaries, plus more cramped quarters for their native auxiliaries—not that that applied to the XIV at present, since their eight famous cohorts of Batavians had defected to the rebels … Vespasian would not be replacing them until I made my report.

  Xanthus was already awed by the atmosphere; I merely felt a throb at re-encountering the familiar. To me the fort had a daytime, half-empty
feel. Many of the troops would be in training or sweating on fatigues, others on their monthly ten-mile route march in full kit. Most of the rest would be on local patrol, and it would be no mere exercise.

  “Impressed, Xanthus? Wait until the camp’s full this evening! Then you will have the unique experience of being among twelve thousand men who all know exactly what they are doing!” He said nothing. “Are you thinking of the potential in twelve thousand stubbly chins?”

  “Twelve thousand flavours of halitosis!” he responded valiantly. “Twelve thousand variations on ‘the girl I stuffed last Thursday.’ And being warned not to nick twelve thousand different wens!”

  We reached the main thoroughfare. “Xanthus, in case you get lost, try to remember the most important street is this one. It’s called the Via Principalis. It’s a hundred feet wide; even you can’t miss the thing. Take your bearing now. The Principalis bisects the camp crossways between the Sinister and Dexter Gates, and the Via Praetoria meets it at right angles at the HQ. The headquarters always face the enemy, so as long as you can see which way the sling-stones are flying in, you can orientate yourself in any fortress in the world…”

  “Where’s the enemy?” He was dazed.

  “Across the river.”

  “Where’s the river?”

  “That way!” I was losing my temper and wasting my breath. “The way we came in,” I reminded him, but he was already too confused.

  “So where are we going?”

  “To introduce ourselves to the nice fellows of the Fourteenth Gemina.”

  It was not a success. Still, I had come prepared for that.

  For one thing, no job I ever undertook concluded itself that easily, and for another, the XIV Gemina had never been nice.

  XVII

  The fortress headquarters were designed to overawe any wild tribesman who dared put his nose round the Praetorian Gate. They formed the main vista as we stared ahead, and tramping closer certainly awed us.

  There was one administration block in the fort. The two legions currently in post took up their quarters on either side, but they shared this edifice, which represented the fort’s permanence. It was massively constructed. The façade comprised heavily colonnaded stonework on either side of a magisterial triple gate that looked straight at us down the Via Praetoria. Dwarfed, we crept in through the left-hand arch to find ourselves facing a well-tramped parade-ground that occupied more land than the forum in most provincial towns. Luckily no one was parading at the time. My timid companion would have expired from shock.